St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-11-13
GALLONS REFORMS.

1t is becoming more and more evident
that the gallows is not successful
death instrument. 1t is success so far
as producing death is concerned, but it
does it in such a horrible way as to
make it repulsive to every sentiment of
humanity. If there were some device by
which the certainty of breaking the vic
TINS neck could be secured, the gallows
would be relieved of much of its repul-
SiveneSS, for then we would know that
the death was instantaneous and pain
less. But when, in twO-thirds of the
public hangingS that take place, the vic
tins die from strangulatiOn, we wonder
why it is that the law estab-
fishes such a horribly bungling
method of capital punishment. 1t
would be more humane to go back
to the customs of the dark ages when
prisoners were strangled in their cells.
Being smOthered to death with pillow
in the privacy of a prison cell is a less
revolving form of barbarity than swing
ing a criminal up in public place and
choking him to death with arOpe. The
guillOtine is an improvements on the gal
lows in that it at least relieves the vic
tim of the apprehension of prolonged
and painful death. The guillotine takes
the head off a lone stroke of the axe,
and that is the end of the death scene.
But where a human being is hung up
in the air for a half hour to
endure the horrible torture Of
a slow death by StrangulatiOn,
we may properly inquire of ourselves
what progress has our civilization
made over the barbariSm of Americas
aboriginal population. When the In
dians burned their prisoners at the
stake it often occurred that some war
rior had humanity enough in his breast
TO end the death torture by plunging a
tomahawk into the brain of the victim.
But under the mode of executing the
death penalty adopted by our refined
civilization the writhing victims con-
torted form may whirl for an hour in
space and yet no one is privileged to
put an end to his suffering by plunging
a knife to his heart, or by kindly send
ing bullet through his brain. 1t
is not necessary to argue against
capital punishment to insist that the
gallows shall be abolished as a death
instrument. When the violatOr of law
pays the penalty of his crime with his
life the law is presumably satisfied.
The demands of the law do not require
that the death shall be one of torture.
Then if the law makes no such demand,
why should the law keep in force a
practice that is so revolving to every
instinct of humanity.
There is another revolving feature of
our public executions which deserves to
be spoken of in most reprehenSible
terms. Its revolving aspect was re-
ferred to by Mr.. HOWARD in his letter
to the GLOBE describing the death
scenes when the Chicago anarchists
were hung. 1t is that of permitting the
doctors to make a mad rush at
the victims body as soon as tits dropped
from the scaffold and of issuing bulle-
tins of the pulse beat every minute.
There is no possible necessity for it; in
fact there is no need for the attendance
of the physician at the scaffOld at all,
except to have him convenient in case
of accident. When man has been
hanging in mid air at the end of
rope for half an hour and his pulse
quits beating it doesn't require any ex-
pert knowledge of medicine to tell that
the man is dead.